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Scientists/cricket geeks have shown that the weather has a significant effect on the results of the Ashes cricket series between Australia and England when the series is held in Australia. The Australian cricket team is more likely to succeed after El Niño years, while the English cricket team does better following La Niña years, the opposite phase when the weather is cooler and wetter. But
how significant is this effect and should the teams change their strategies accordingly?

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Last week's BBC programme The price of life highlighted the plight of cancer sufferers awaiting a decision by NICE, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, on a new drug that could add years to their lives. If approved by NICE, the drug, called revlimid and used to treat a cancer called multiple myeloma, could be
prescribed freely on the NHS. If rejected, the prohibitive cost would spell the end of the line for many patients. In the light of the suffering facing myeloma patients and their families, the main criterion for NICE's decisions — cost-effectiveness — seems almost inhumane. But exactly what kind of mathematical considerations go into NICE's calculations?

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In our second online poll to find out what Plus readers would most like to know about the Universe, you told us that you'd like to know if the constants of nature really are constant. We took the question to cosmologist John D. Barrow, Professor of Mathematical Sciences at the University of Cambridge, and here is his answer. Please feel free to discuss the answer by leaving a comment on this blog. We'll periodically check back with the experts to try and answer interesting further questions.

We took your question about the speed of light to John D Barrow and here is his answer:

"No, there can never be a proof that the speed of light is constant. Relativity theory requires the speed of light in vacuum to be constant and the same for all observers. All we can do is test whether that is true and hence whether the theory of relativity is a corrrect description of nature. There may be tiny quantum mechanical corrections to the theory which produce very small changes in
extreme environments (very small distance, high frequencies or strong gavitational fields)."

"An added subtlety is that in most of these possible worlds life cannot exist."

This leads to another question: what do you mean by 'life'? What makes life special? How can it be that there might be a world where rocks etc. can exist but 'life' (whatever definition you choose for that word) can't?

A constant is nothing but it is a derived numerical ratio between the two same fundamental quantities.The constant is said to be a point function,since it is constant at a point when it is made to travel at different atmosphere with different velocities,the value of constant may varie and moreover an example to say that the velocity of light is constant,when abody is made to move with a
velocity equal to light then the constant may vary relative to this object speed.so constant is an induvidual point function and independent from the different variables.

What would you like to know about your Universe — The third online poll

This poll is now closed. The most popular question was: "What are dark energy and dark matter?" We will publish the answer in an article and podcast on Plus shortly. Thank you for taking part!

This is our third online poll in our series to celebrate the International Year of Astronomy 2009. Choose your favourite question from the list on the right, and we'll put the one that proves most popular to world-leading astronomers and cosmologists, including Astronomer Royal Martin Rees and author and cosmologist John D. Barrow. The poll will
remain open for a month and the answer will be published in a Plus article and podcast soon after. If your most burning question is not on this list, then leave a comment on this blog and we'll endeavour to include it in a future poll — there will be four more polls dotted throughout the year.

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Dark matter is possibly "easy" to determine: neutrinos have mass. That simple (but hugely ignored) fact could provide both sufficient mass and energy to explain the otherwise unobserved masses and energies that puzzle us.

But how Gravity works - well, that's something I would really like to know.